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Mumbling on Organizations, Management, People and Technology

The Managerial Rub-Off Effect

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I have been musing about the “managerial rub-off effect” for a long time. Essentially, the hypothesis is that if you have a great manager, it would have a positive rub-off on you, and you would manage your team well in turn. What it means is sub-cultures get easily created within an organization by managers and there could be positive and negative aspects to it based on how managers manage. Here is a simple matrix to explain what I am talking about:

Optimized: Managers who have great bosses create high levels of engagement within their teams

Concern: Managers who do not have great bosses, in turn are not able to create high levels of engagement with their teams

Striving: Talented in terms of people management – these managers create highly engaged teams, despite not having great bosses.

Sub-optimal: Despite having a great boss, these managers are not able to pass on the “rub-off” effect to their teams. Possible talent issues, poor selection of teams, need for coaching?

In one of my drill-downs into employee data, I found that in almost 65-70% of the cases there is a direct linkage between how a manager is managed and how he manages. This clearly indicates the power of managers to create sub-cultures within organizations (with positive or negative weaves). This makes a strong case for senior managers to lead by example when it comes to people management and thus, foster a productive and engaged workplace.



Written by Abhishek

June 2, 2008 at 5:03 pm

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  1. [...] feel that workgroup engagement is paramount, since managers hold the key to employee engagement. They cite oft-repeated quotes like “People join companies, but leave managers.” I feel [...]

  2. [...] Questions About Your Management Engagement: I have stressed earlier that there is a rub-off effect of a manager’s engagement level on his team-members’ engagemen… This post has basic questions that need to be [...]


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